Yancy is one of the many students at Central High School who have found their place doing what they love. Yancy’s place is art.

“I’ve been doing art most of my life, but I didn’t take an art class until eighth grade,” she says. “I’m better at drawing, but recently I’ve been trying a lot of different materials and mediums, and I’ve come to love oil painting.”

Over the years, Yancy has won many awards for her artwork. In fifth grade, she placed third in the photography category in the Mineral Area Council on the Arts K-12 Art Show. In ninth grade, she placed first in the printmaking category, and during her sophomore year, she placed first in the black and white drawing category.

Yancy also plans to continue art in college. “I enjoy making art – it’s one of my favorite things to do. My hope is to get an art scholarship of some kind or to take a lot of art classes,” she says.

“Art has really impacted my life. [Art classes have] taught me dedication and how you kinda have to push through even if you don’t exactly want to or think you can. It helps me express myself and show my talent.”

There are many students at Central High School, all with different talents and hobbies. Because high school is the time to explore interests, students often find themselves finding new and creative ways to use their talents. Kerston Furry is a senior who uses her artistic skills in her free time to create masterpieces and to express herself.

“Drawing is something that I have always done, but my drawings didn’t realistically come to life until I started high school,” says Kerston. “Mr. Henson really pushed my artistic ability and changed my average drawings into pieces that looked incredibly real.”

Kerston took art class her freshman year through her junior year. Last spring, she placed third in the 11th–12th grade black and white drawing division in the Mineral Area Council on the Arts K-12 Art Show.

“Art has always held a large impact on my life. I love being able to express myself through my creativity,” she says.

Kerston does not plan to pursue a career in art, but she says that her artistic ability is something she will always have close by her side.

Central High School will undergo many changes in the next school year, and at the heart of all these changes is our own principal, Mr. Coleman. At the end of this school year, Mr. Coleman will be saying goodbye to his career as principal at CHS. In the meantime, he is moving on to an even bigger, more prominent position: superintendent. As a final farewell, the Centralian caught up with our superintendent-to-be to learn about his history as principal of CHS and to get an idea of what changes he will make as the superintendent of the school district.

Mr. Coleman has many fond memories from being the principal, but he specifically likes to reflect on the numerous sports accomplishments the students have achieved.

“Winning the state championship for girl’s basketball was a big memory, [and] watching our kids win district championship after district championship in football; just any of those days thrill me to no end.”

He also remembers many events that have impacted him in one way or another. He tells an interesting story that happened in his second or third year as principal: He was in his office when Angie suddenly called him on the radio and informed him that a fight was about to break out in the back parking lot. When he arrived at the scene of the impending fight, he saw a student standing in front of two large men. The two men (he estimated to be between the ages of 20 and 30) were the brothers of the student’s ex-girlfriend, and they were planning to beat him up as revenge for breaking their sister’s heart.

Mr. Coleman says the two men were being extremely hostile, threatening to fight him, and wouldn’t listen to anything he said. He told the men, “This is a high school; you need to go,” but the men still wouldn’t leave. Mr. Coleman and one of the men were about to get into a fight, but the cops luckily arrived just in time. The man ready to fight Mr. Coleman was arrested.

This even spurred Mr. Coleman to make an important realization. “Those children never forgot that situation, and they knew that I would always take up for them no matter what they had done and no matter what the problem was,” he says.

Mr. Coleman’s first work as superintendent will be to transform the district calendar from days-based to hours-based. This will add 25 minutes to the school day on all campuses. The high school will then have an RTI period. This will replace pass and allow students to have extra time in school to study or ask for help from teachers. This new calendar will also add a spring break and will prevent the school district from having to make up snow days.

He also says that the district will be hiring instructional leaders. “[These leaders will] lead our staff, teach our teachers to be better teachers, and [will] focus on student performance,” he says.

Additionally, there will be a new bond issue. The bond issue will increase classroom space here in the high school. “Probably in April 2019, a year from now, we’re going to ask our voters to approve a no-tax-increase bond issue to add three science classrooms onto the high school, big labs and classrooms, and move the attendance office to the back parking lot area,” says Mr. Coleman. This project will also double to size of the weight room and create a separate room dedicated to wrestling.

In regards to recent events, he adds that the high school will become a locked campus during the day with buzzer systems to make the building safer.

Overall, Mr. Coleman will focus heavily on teacher development and will develop a three-year plan to transform the Central School District into a professional learning community.

Mr. Coleman says his best piece of advice for the new principal is to listen. “Listen to what the students say, listen to what the teachers say, and listen to what the parents say. The more you listen, the more you learn about what is needed, what is not needed, what should be changed, [and] what shouldn’t be changed,” he says.

In fact, the reason he started the student advisory committee years ago was to help him to be a better listener to what students have to say.

“Make decisions and choices that are always in the best interest of the students,” he adds.

After he leaves, he doesn’t want anyone to use the phrase “Yo mama, yo daddy, or whoever you live with.” He also doesn’t want the freshmen orientation to be called “Fish Camp” anymore.

Lastly, he leaves his love for the Dallas Cowboys to the entire school.

Throughout his career as principal here at CHS, Mr. Coleman made many lasting memories and learned many important lessons, and he plans to make several significant changes as superintendent. He has been hard-working to ensure that Central High School is a high-ranking, over-achieving school, and he will do the same for the entire school district when he becomes the superintendent. Thank you to Mr. Brad Coleman for his service to Central High School.

As a member of the Central Rebels Speech Team, I highly encourage every student with even a slight interest in speech and debate to join our team and to take the competitive speech and debate class offered at Central, and because I am a debater, I will be presenting a case on why every prospective student should do so. Let’s begin.

“Similar to athletic sports, speech and debate activities are challenging, competitive in nature, and require regular practice, coaching, dedication, and hard work,” states the National Speech and Debate Association’s website.

Competitive Speech and Debate is a class in which students prepare pieces for speech events and/or prepare debate cases and rehearse them with the direction of Mr. Weiss as a coach. The first semester of the class is focused on students choosing events in which to participate, selecting pieces to perform, and practicing for competition. The second semester is focused on preparing a reader’s theater piece for the district speech and debate competition.

Participating in speech and debate equips students with many valuable skills and is a fun hobby that creates lifelong friendships. It is for these reasons that I stand with the resolution, “Resolved: Participating in speech and debate is beneficial to every student.”

To begin, I would like to define two words in the resolution:

“Speech” is defined by the National Speech and Debate Association’s, also known as the NSDA’s, website to “involve a presentation by [one or two] students that [are] judged against a similar type of presentation by others in a round of competition. Speech events range from limited preparation events that require extensive knowledge of current events to dramatic and humorous interpretation, which challenge students to find powerful moments in literature and recreate them for an audience.”

“Debate” is defined by the NSDA’s website to “involve an individual or a team of debaters working to effectively convince a judge that their side of a resolution is, as a general principle, more valid. Students in debate come to thoroughly understand both sides of the resolution, having researched each extensively, and learn to think critically about every argument that could be made on each side.”

Now that the resolution is clear, I will continue with my contentions.

First, speech and debate equips students with many valuable life skills. As someone who has participated in speech and debate for four years, I have gained several skills that help me in my everyday life and my professional life.

Speech and debate has tremendously helped my public speaking skills (which also makes taking the public speaking class for college a breeze). I am normally a shy person, but I have no trouble speaking in front of crowds.

Not only have my public speaking abilities excelled, but my critical thinking and listening skills have also skyrocketed due to speech and debate. I have also learned to think quickly on my feet and to be confident under pressure.

All of these skills have been a major benefit for me while interviewing and competing for scholarships and will continue to benefit me when I interview for job, intern, and career positions in the future.

Second, speech and debate is a fun hobby that keeps participants out of trouble. I’ll be the first to admit: speech and debate takes a lot of work, but nobody should let that dissuade them from doing it! I enjoy the time I put into my pieces because it’s fun to compete. It’s the same reason why athletes put a lot of time and work into their practices and work-outs: they love it! Because so much time is invested in speech and debate, there is less time for participants to get into trouble.

One of the best parts of speech and debate is going to the competitions. It’s fun to be in a room full of students who enjoy the same hobbies as I do and even more fun competing against them. Before competing in every round, I enjoy getting to know my competitors so the competition is more lighthearted and we can all cheer each other on.

Lastly, many lifelong friendships are made in speech and debate. I have met many people over the past four years whom I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I even know some people who have found relationships in speech and debate.

Speech and debate has been a huge part of my life and has benefited me in many ways because it equips students with valuable life skills, is a fun pastime that keeps students out of trouble, and it creates lifelong friendships. It is for these reasons that I urge every prospective student to participate in speech and debate.

If you have any questions about joining the Central Rebel Speech Team, see Mr. Weiss or email him at jweiss@centralr3.org.

“How to High School” is a monthly article series of seniors giving tips to underclassmen on how to survive high school. In this issue, seniors Skyler Amonette, Tyce Huck, and Holden Mayberry give their advice to all underclassmen.

I have a question. Why are we afraid to be brave? Why are we ashamed of our stories? Maybe what you’re going through could make someone realize that it’s gonna be alright. Maybe you could be the light. Maybe you coming out stronger, in the end, could be the push someone needs. What if you’re someone’s inspiration?

Last week, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) students went to their District Leadership Conference to compete in numerous events. Four Central students took top places in the categories offered.

According to the FBLA webpage, “Missouri FBLA-PBL prides itself on its competitive event programs. Each competitive event is cross-walked to National Business Education Association standards and fits into the major career clusters of business education. Students have the opportunity to compete at multiple levels of competition for scholarships and national honors.”

Missouri FBLA has more than 17,000 members in fifty chapters all over the state. Participants are able to advance to district, state, and national competition. FBLA prepares individuals for positions in the business world. This organization also does fundraisers for education for youth, such as reading skills, and economic growth.

Each category holds different requirements, such as a business exam, or project.

Freshman Mike Weinhold took 4th place in district competition for the Intro to Business category.

“It felt amazing and it was really surprising,” Mike says.

Hannah Ashley took 4th place in the Intro to Business Communications event.

Mikayla Watkins took 4th place in Business Communications. She had to do an objective test over different types of communication, communication concepts, and other topics that relate to communicating effectively in the business setting.

Stephanie DeClue and Hannah Ashley took 1st place in Publication Design. This event required them to work together to provide visual aids and samples related to their design of print publications. They were allowed to use different video techniques to capture the judge’s attention and different software programs to layout their design. The publication portfolio with which they were tasked was for a new “fresh food” that they could sell and deliver to their customers’ doorsteps. They had to name their business, create a business logo, card, and other products.

Central was in one of twenty different districts competing just last week. We competed against surrounding counties and towns such as Farmington, Fredericktown, Hillsboro, Lesterville, Viburnum, and many others.

Weinhold, Watkins, DeClue, and Ashley will all advance to State competition in April.

A job I would be really good at is taking care of people when they most need it.

What skill would you like to master?

I would like to master the piano and be able to play really amazing pieces.

What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?

The most amazing adventure to go on would probably be skydiving. That’s one that I want to do.

What pets did you have while you were growing up?

I had tons of pets while growing up. I think overall I had 5 dogs, 12 cats, 2 bunnies, 2 parakeets, and I’m pretty sure I had a guinea pig.

Who’s your go to band or artist when you can’t decide on something to listen to? Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished?

Shawn Mendes is my go to artists because I have followed him on Vine since before he was really known. My friend sent me one of his videos, and I followed him ever since I heard one of his cover videos. He has impressed me so much because in the five years I’ve followed him, he’s gone from making six-second cover vines to travelling the world on tour, and having millions of fans. He is always true to his music and never leaves the sight of his fans. He has gotten awards and a gold record for his music, and it’s mind blowing.

What age do you wish you could permanently be?

I would want to stay at the age 24 because it’s not the age right before you start your career and family, but it’s also after the years of being told what to do with your life and how to live it.

What was the best book or series that you’ve ever read?

The best book I’ve ever read was Some Boys. It was a Gateway last year, and I read it twice, and I never read books twice.

What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

The farthest I’ve been away from home was over the summer, I went to church camp in Panama City Beach, FL, and I went without seeing any of my family.

What is the most annoying question that people ask you?

The most annoying question and repeating question I get is, “So what are we supposed to do?” after the teacher already explained the assignment.